MILF: Kidnap suspect is mayor’s kin

COTABATO CITY – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) urged the Philippine National Police and the military yesterday to look deeper into reports that the arrested lookout of the kidnappers of a hotel owner and a Korean national in Palembang, Sultan Kudarat is a relative of the town’s incumbent mayor.

The suspect, Abu Bandan, 36, is "related by blood" with Pa-lembang Mayor Samrod Mamansual, according to MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu.

Palembang officials earlier tagged two MILF commanders, Salem Gogo and Tigre Jikiri, as the masterminds of last week’s abduction of businessman Carlos Belonio and his Korean associate, Jae Kwon Yoon, in the Palembang barangay of Malisbong .

Belonio, owner of the Tierra Verde Hotel in General Santos City, and Jae were snatched while surveying sites in Palembang where treasures were supposedly buried by retreating Japanese soldiers at the end of World War II.

Bandan, now undergoing interrogation in an undisclosed military camp, was arrested by members of the Army’s 11th Special Forces Company in Barangay Malisbong just hours after the abduction.

Kabalu told radio station dxMY in an interview that Bandan, a Maguindanaoan, is a relative of Mamansual, a former commander of the Moro National Liberation Front.

Sources from Palembang earlier said that certain municipal officials mostly identified with the MNLF have long been at odds with MILF commanders in the area.

Local armed groups belonging to both sides have long been squabbling for control of vast forest lands and marine fishing grounds in Palembang, a coastal town.

"We have been receiving persistent feedback that Belonio is now in the hands of an influential leader in the area," Kabalu told dxMY.

Presidential Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza, chairman of the government peace panel, met with Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF vice chairman for political affairs, in Maguindanao yesterday for possible cooperation in securing the release of the two captives.

"But the paramount guideline in dealing with the kidnappers is President Arroyo’s no-ransom stand. We cannot deviate from that policy," Dureza told The STAR after the meeting in Sultan Kudarat town.

Mamansual, who earlier spearheaded negotiations with the kidnappers, said he now wants a rescue operation by the police and the military.

Mamansual was apparently irked by what he described as "interference" by certain people, whom he did not identify, in the negotiations.